Steve Jobs took exactly the opposite tack -- he would say things like "People don't know what they want until we tell them" -- and he succeeded with that outloo

Steve Jobs took exactly the opposite tack -- he would say things like "People don't know what they want until we tell them" -- and he succeeded with that outlook. I'm not saying the article is wrong, only that it's not a self-evident position. Chances are a product will succeed or fail for reasons neither the designers nor the customers understand. Consider the personal computer -- the best minds in technology were offered a chance to get in at the start, and nearly all of them turned it down. Hewlett-Packard repeatedly rejected Steve Wozniak's proposals until he quit and developed his ideas with Steve Jobs in a garage. Then IBM created a rather limited knockoff PC, expecting it to serve only as an "entry system" to their main product line, which was large systems. Pretty soon the tail wagged the dog. And the Internet -- no one saw it coming, even when it was on top of them. No one was able to predict any aspect of that phenomenon, something that remains true. About people's tastes and choices in entertainment, Hollywood screenwriter William Goldman famously said, "Nobody knows anything". I agree, and I think it applies to technology as well. The bottom line -- if you ask customers what they want, what they might buy, they won't be able to tell you. I disagreed with Steve Jobs about practically everything, but he was dead right about this.